Washington (CNSNews.com) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez sympathizes with FARC, a Colombian drug-trafficking guerilla faction whom he considers “respectful,” government officials from Venezuela who oppose Chavez's socialist regime told CNSNews.com.
 
“I have no doubts that Chavez’s government has a political and ideological identity with the FARC guerilla,” Cesar Perez Vivas, governor of the Venezuelan state of Tachira, told CNSNews.com in Spanish Tuesday.
 
“The president (Chavez) himself has confessed in the parliament that the FARC is a respectful movement; an armed movement worthy of our country’s recognition,” he added. 

Vivas spoke to CNSNews.com at the Council of the Americas in Washington, D.C., on July 20. The participants included the governors of two Venezuelan states along the Colombian border and the mayor of Caracas, the country’s capital. All three officials are part of the opposition to the current government under Chavez.
 
“When we reach the level of political solidarity when a country’s leader uses his country’s parliament to give that kind of qualification to a terrorist movement that everyone knows about due to its violent actions and its affiliation with narco-trafficking, anything can happen,” Vivas told CNSNews.com.
 
Vivas described the relationship between the current Venezuelan government and the FARC terrorist movement as "a pact of aggression" that involves "uncontrollable hostility" that is out in the open to public eyes.
 
“The pact of aggression between FARC and the Chavez government is public and well-known,” Vivas told CNSNews.com. “Currently, we lack a constitution that allows us to adequately control this issue, but when the river sounds, rocks come with it (meaning it can become a reality).”
 
Pablo Perez Alvarez, governor of the Zulia state in Venezuela, pointed out that conditions along the border between Colombia and Mexico are dangerous and complicated due to FARC operatives on the loose. 
 
“The situation along the border is very difficult where the Colombian irregulars, such as FARC, are at large,” Alvarez told CNSNews.com in Spanish.
 
“Indistinctively, there is a group of irregulars using the border between Colombia and Venezuela to their advantage due to the Colombian persecution of these irregulars, who influence similar Venezuelans to commit illicit acts,” he added.
 
Alvarez compared the problems and situation along the Venezuela and Colombia border to those on the U.S.-Mexico border. 

“It’s a huge border much like the Mexico and U.S. border where the easy traffic of immigrants and drugs are part of a series of delinquency acts that takes place,” he told CNSNews.com.
 
“In this case, the border is permeable to all sorts of activity--not just drug trafficking, but kidnapping, extortion--and unfortunately no government policies exist to combat the border situation,” he added.
 
“On the contrary, punishment and pressure are nonexistent although the illicit situation along the border is well known,” he added. “The situation is one of organized crime.”
 
When CNSNews.com asked the governors whether Venezuela could be considered a narco-state as it stands now--or if it is danger of becoming one--Vivas danced around the question, saying that the government needs to get control of the situation.
 
“I think that Venezuela has a very big border that is easily permeable not only by the presence of terrorist movements and drugs,” Vivas told CNSNews.com. 
 
“We need to get a better grip over the military institution that is now submitted to and converted to an armed political party of the government so that we can possess all the elements to combat the problems,” he added.
 
But a July 20 report on Venezuelan drug-trafficking produced by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, said that the influx of cocaine into Venezuela from Colombia was amplified from 2004 to 2007, due to corruption at high levels of the Venezuelan government and state aid to guerillas in Colombia responsible for drug-trafficking.
 
Venezuela has been a major distribution port for cocaine coming into the U.S. and Europe since 1996, according to the report.
 
Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) asked for the report in February 2008, in an effort to find out if Venezuela was “becoming a narco-state, heavily dependent and beholden to the international trade in illegal drugs.”
 
In a statement, Lugar described the study’s conclusion as a concern “that Venezuela’s failure to cooperate with the United States on drug interdiction is related to corruption in that country’s government,” adding that a review of U.S. policy toward Venezuela is evidently needed.
 
Chavez, who angrily denounced the report, said in response that the U.S. has no business insinuating that Venezuela is a “narco-state” because America is a heavy consumer of cocaine, adding that Venezuela is "better off" since he kicked U.S. Drug Enforcement Agents out of the country in 2005.  
 
Throughout the discussion, the Venezuelan government officials maintained that their message to the world is that democratic sentiments still live on in Venezuela despite oppression from the Chavez regime.
 
“I am convinced that in Venezuela people are more likely to reach agreement than indifference, but we have to leave behind the language of radicalism, violence and war and trade them for language and action of reconciliation, dialogue, advancement, and true respect for the democratic system,” Alvarez said.
 
“You can be sure of one thing, we will continue to work for a better democracy in Venezuela,” he added.

The political polarization of the Venezuelan government is of such magnitude that “Venezuela is a time bomb, politically and economically,” added Vivas. 

“Our democracy is at risk in Venezuela because we have a president that uses democracy to destroy democracy; because there is no development of democracy, there is no amplitude of democracy,” said Antonio Ledezma, mayor of Caracas, in Spanish.
 
“On the contrary, the government uses the democracy to impose a model that is personal and (authoritarian)," he added. “This year, municipal elections were suspended by this government.”
 
“There are polls now in Venezuela that indicate that a clear majority resents the authoritarian model and has begun to hold the president responsible for the social and economic problems that have resulted from this regime in the last 10 years,” he also said.
 
As for whether they fear repercussions from Chavez’ government for coming to the U.S. to speak out against the socialist regime, Ledezma said: “What more can they do to us, we’re prepared for any risk.”
 
Alvarez said the government is going to "criminalize our coming here.” 

“They’re already attacking us and we’re used to it," he said. "The people are tired of hearing the same adjectives such as 'traitors to the country,' but I think the one who betrays his country is the one who betrays the constitution and allows people to starve.”
 
The Venezuelan government approved amendments to the electoral charter that allows President Chavez, who was first elected in 1998, to run for re-election indefinitely in February 2009.

According to the U.S. State Department and other official government sources, the Venezuelan government has been guilty of numerous human rights violations under the rule of Chavez.

“Politicization of the judiciary and official harassment of the political opposition and the media characterized the human rights situation during the year,” said the State Department's Country Report on Human Rights in Venezuela for 2008, released in March 2009.